The Azalea Assault

by Alyse Carlson

  “But family is family.”

  “I didn’t say they weren’t speaking, or that she didn’t buy him Christmas presents. She just doesn’t want his political party to be in power.”

  Rob shrugged, not grasping how a family could compartmentalize in that way. “Still, a murder charge for his daughter would hurt him. If that was one of the killer’s goals, it could work.”

  Cam hadn’t thought about it from that angle and hated admitting it had some merit. “So finding out who might want to damage him politically would help. Unfortunately, he killed a big land preservation bill last year, so that’s pretty much the whole Garden Society.”

  “Seriously?”

  Cam nodded, disappointed there wasn’t something more to go on, but slightly encouraged at the peripheral idea that at the very least Annie might be able to cast doubt on herself as a suspect and offer a motive for someone framing her. Cam hoped this never came down to a trial, though.

  By the time they had eaten, drunk, and tipped, Cam figured they’d made it to only two hours too early to break into the greenhouse.

  “So what do you want to do?” Rob asked.

  “Show you the pictures,” Cam said. She spotted Rob’s frustration only after the fact. She’d had too much to drink to realize he wanted a romantic encounter beforehand, but she wasn’t in the mood, so it was easier to feign ignorance. What she currently craved was focus.

  When she entered her apartment, she found it.

  “Annie!”

  Annie grinned. “I hoped you wouldn’t mind I was here.”

  “Not at all!” Cam rushed over and hugged Annie tightly several times in her tipsy exuberance. “Why didn’t you call?”

  “They still have my phone at the station, though they haven’t formally charged it with anything.” She snorted at her own joke. It was just like Annie to make light of the situation. “And I don’t know your number anymore because you’re on speed dial. Your dad bailed me out, but I didn’t think to ask him for your number. Besides, I knew you were swamped. I also knew at some point you’d come home.”

  “That’s true, but I’m your best friend.”

  “Who I’m counting on to solve this thing! Jake’s no help.”

  “Rob is.” Cam smiled.

  Annie winked at Rob. “I knew Rob would be. I never doubted that. But I didn’t want to interrupt you.”

  “Well… I guess we’ve got some stuff…”

  “Like what?”

  “Well… something we’re looking into in a little bit. But there’s also the pictures from the party for you to look at. I took copies to the police, and I saw some helpful bits of information in those shots. Maybe while we’re gone you can go through them more closely. You have a better eye.”

  “Sounds good. There are a lot of things I’m not supposed to do, but looking at pictures I took isn’t on that list. Still… what are you two up to?”

  Cam looked at Rob, who nodded, so Cam explained their theory on the greenhouse.

  “Greenhouse one? Isn’t that ‘Winter’?”

  “Yeah. It’s the one where the camera was found.”

  “Well, sure… for pictures it might be ideal. If it’s got the most direct view of the hot tub and all that. But if Rob is right and this is about pot, I’d check ‘Summer.’ That’s where year-round growth would occur.”

  Cam realized she hadn’t taken the drug idea very seriously until this point. She certainly hadn’t thought about the plant properties of pot, but if it really was a possibility, Annie was right. “Okay… so we have two greenhouses to check…”

  “And I will cover the pictures,” Annie said, reaching for Cam’s computer expectantly.

  Cam grinned. “Excellent!” She pulled her computer out and pointed out the file. “We might be a while, but I know you’ve got plenty to do.”

  “Including sleep—cupcake shop isn’t covered tomorrow. This will help me unwind, though—far better to do something and sleep later, than to try to sleep with a head full of crime riddles.”

  Cam hugged Annie again.

  “I’m just glad they set bail. I worried a bit they wouldn’t.”

  “You’re not the only one. The judge was one of those guys my dad used to eat for lunch when he was a trial lawyer. Fortunately, it was your dad there for me instead.” Annie picked up Cam’s laptop and headed upstairs.

  CHAPTER 17

  Cam didn’t pull her rebel boots on very often. Part of her was giddy with excitement, and part of her was terrified. She had no experience at all at being busted. She wasn’t sure she could handle it. She delayed for at least ten minutes, stowing flashlights, drawing maps, and suggesting the order they’d look. Finally, when she suggested a secret code, Rob drew the line. They left for La Fontaine, intent on breaking into at least greenhouse one, possibly one and three. Cam’s stomach fluttered and her brain complained this wasn’t very well thought out.

  “Cam, if we get caught, we get caught. Your rationale for being there is good.”

  Cam had brought her day planner. The minute they entered the greenhouse, she’d stash it, so there was really something to “find.”

  Rob parked the equivalent of a block away, though out of town like they were, the actual streets were sporadically placed, rather than an evenly spaced grid. They climbed out and for the first part of their journey held hands as they walked. The evening breeze and the passage of time since her last cocktail had finally left Cam feeling relatively sober.

  The driveway was well lit, but after passing quickly through the gate, they rushed easily to the side, into the myriad bushes and trees, and out of view.

  As they walked around the side of La Fontaine, Cam noted the servant’s house was dark. The magazine crew was at their hotel, and nobody had taken over—the crime-scene tape still hung across the door. The fountain was lit. Cam thought it might be on a light sensor.

  Three steps into the back garden they were met by an obstacle Cam had forgotten. The yapping hysterics of Barney, as the little dog rushed at them, were startling in the silence. There was a dog flap on the back door, but Cam worried he would wake someone, so she acted instinctively, scanning the patio for playthings. Finally she found a squeaky bone. She threw it, and Barney set out to chase it. She was impressed she’d remembered the trick. When he carried the toy back, he was willing to let Cam pick him up, with only the minor squeaks of bone chewing now breaking the white noise from the fountain.

  She whispered to him, and Barney wagged his tail and wiggled. She dropped him. He dropped the bone toy and bounced a few times, as she’d only ever seen Jack Russells do, and then he growled.

  Cam’s second, “Hey, sweet boy, com’ ’ere!” followed by a scooping up of the bone, however, calmed him, and he leaped into Cam’s arms again and began licking her face.

  She scratched him, ruffled his fur, and carried him as she and Rob made their way deeper into the garden. They chose the darkest of the paths that headed toward greenhouse one. After a bit she put Barney down again and tossed his squeaky bone. He seemed content to walk along with them after that, stub of a tail wagging, plastic bone in his jaws.

  They entered greenhouse one quietly, Cam stashing her planner on a side table. They then made their way slowly through the rows of bushes and shrubs that dominated “Winter.” While it took twenty minutes to walk all the rows, they found nothing interesting at all in the plants. Cam was disappointed but not surprised. Annie’s suggestion that “Summer” would be the place to grow pot sounded logical. Then Cam spotted scaffolding. She ran the flashlight up, and Rob approached it.

  “Down here, Cam. Help me see.”

  “I don’t think you should…”

  “Come on. We need to check.”

  “It’s just for the sprinkler system.”

  “Cam.”

  She slouched, but finally aimed the flashlight so he could climb. At the top, he fiddled with something Cam couldn’t see, and then said, “Bingo!”

  “What?”

&nbs
p; “View of the hot tub, indeed. I bet this is where Benny does his peeping.”

  “So, on to three?”

  Rob grunted ascent as he climbed down. The main door to three was locked, but Cam had considered this likelihood. In fact, she’d been surprised greenhouse one had been so easy to access. Many high-end greenhouses had sides that, like garage doors, could be rolled up in the event of too much heat. Cam figured the Patricks would have the best, so they went around to the side farthest from the house. It didn’t take long to find a door that would roll up.

  Rob shivered.

  “What?”

  “There’s just enough light from the moon that these plants look menacing. I’m pretty sure one is going to grab us.”

  “Oh, stop!” She wanted to laugh, but a shiver ran up her spine instead.

  “Might help if we fooled around a little.”

  “Will you stop? That’s the last thing we need to get caught at when we’re already trespassing.”

  Rob acted annoyed, suggesting Evangeline seemed like an understanding woman, but Cam knew he was teasing.

  “Back just a little farther and we can use our flashlights,” Rob said.

  They started at the back and worked their way forward The place was creepy in the dark. But that didn’t worry Cam as much as the fear of knocking over something valuable. The plants were almost all native, but a few of them were nearly extinct, and very pricey.

  As they took a few more steps forward, a loud scrape broke the silence. They were not alone in the building; someone had run into something. Cam killed the flashlight and followed Rob into a crevice between plants.

  The person who’d entered wasn’t nearly so careful about bumping into things as they had been. There were noises with relative frequency, and once, a crash. There was, however, no light, which indicated to Cam that the other person had also snuck in.

  Cam turned to Rob, holding a finger over her mouth in a “keep quiet” gesture and pulling him back even farther. She half hoped she’d spot the intruder and a piece of the murder puzzle would slide into place, though that would also indicate a greater danger than just being caught trespassing.

  Rob hung back obediently, massaging her neck but doing nothing noisy or flamboyant until he suddenly leaped past her.

  “Annie?”

  “Rob!”

  Cam tried to grab Rob, tried to take back the noise, but realized Rob was right. The person crashing around behind them was Annie.

  “Shut up. You want us to get caught?” Annie said.

  Cam snorted, then had a hard time not bursting into loud laughter. “After all the noise you just made? If anyone was here to hear, they heard. Why are you here?”

  “I figured if you two squares couldn’t even work out that ‘Summer’ was the better place to grow it, you certainly weren’t going to be able to identify it. I bet neither of you even knows what pot looks like.”

  “We know!” Cam and Rob said together.

  Annie nodded, eyebrows raised. “Right.”

  Cam knew it was true, though it irritated her, that Annie was much more likely than she or Rob to have had a friend over the years who “grew his own.”

  Annie ignored them and went on. “I think I got stung by a plant, though. My calf is getting numb, and it hurts like hell.”

  Cam frowned at Annie’s face but then knelt with the flashlight to examine Annie’s calf.

  “That’s not a plant sting. You got a spider bite.”

  “Great. So how long does my leg have? Long enough to identify the pot plant for you, or am I going to die immediately?”

  Rob knelt as if Annie’s question was serious, and looked at the bite.

  “Looks like a wolf spider to me.”

  “A what?”

  “Wolf spider. You have at least twenty-four hours, but we don’t need you.”

  Cam elbowed Rob. “It will get worse for half an hour or so, then reverse.” Cam hated spiders, but she’d had a variety of spider bites with all the gardening she did, and was at a theoretical truce with them. At least they ate many of the bugs that destroyed gardens.

  “You need me and you know it,” Annie said. Cam could tell she wouldn’t be so sassy if she hadn’t heard Cam, but she was addressing Rob.

  “Fine! Wait… how’d you get here? I still have your keys and your car is at the cupcake shop,” Cam said.

  “Yeah, I noticed.” Cam could almost hear the eye roll. “I hid in the back of the Jeep while you two took forever getting ready.”

  Rob looked disturbed.

  “I was under a blanket,” Annie added. Cam thought she was probably smirking, though it was too dark to see well.

  She started scanning again with the flashlight, Rob and Annie checking to either side as Cam moved forward.

  It took Cam a few minutes to realize Barney was still contentedly scuffling between them. He hadn’t let out so much as a growl when Annie joined them.

  “Some watchdog,” Cam accused.

  “I fed him,” Annie confessed.

  Barney growled toward Cam, as if he understood her words. She tried to scoop him up again, but he went to Annie.

  “I’m sorry, smart fella. Annie tricked you. She does that.”

  “You’re not winning him back. Food trumps fun in the dog world. There!” Annie stepped forward as Cam tried to convince Barney to approach her again, but he jumped into Annie’s arms. Annie scratched him but then dropped him and moved two plants to the side.

  “What?” Rob asked. “There’s nothing there… empty table.”

  Barney finally leaped back into Cam’s arms.

  “And when you look around this overloaded greenhouse, how likely do you think it is that almost a whole table would be sitting empty when the rest is so crowded?”

  Rob went forward to check the spot more closely.

  “It does look pretty odd, Cam. There is some dirt, and some rings back here, like a bunch of containers were moved.”

  “I wish we could tell when. They could have been moved at any time,” Cam said, disappointed.

  “I think we’re screwed if we were hoping to find evidence in here,” Annie commented.

  “Yeah,” Rob said. “Something not here is no proof of anything, at least not officially.”

  There was a creak, and Barney shot out of Cam’s arms, running toward the front of the greenhouse, barking.

  “We should go,” Cam whispered as a flashlight beam began scanning the greenhouse.

  They edged their way back toward the open sliding door but were caught midway.

  “Stop! Right there. I could shoot, but I don’t want to. Who’s there?”

  It was Jake. Barney’s jaws were clenched to his pant leg, and the dog growled menacingly.

  “Shoot!” Cam said a little too loudly. She was trying to shoo Annie out, but Annie wouldn’t budge. She elbowed Cam.

  “Nice word choice, moron,” Annie said. “You know if you don’t just learn to swear, you could get us all killed.”

  “Jake! It’s Rob and Cam!” Rob shouted.

  “I count three.”

  “Damn moonlight,” Annie muttered.

  “And Annie, but I made her come,” Cam lied.

  “Annie is out on bail,” Jake said. “This is a really bad place for Annie to be.”

  “I needed to find my planner, and she had it last.” Cam saw Jake frown.

  “And you didn’t tell the Patricks you’d be trespassing?”

  “I thought I did. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re trespassing. And it’s dark. How are you doing this in the dark?”

  “I have implicit permission!” Cam shouted, scrambling. She ignored the darkness comment.

  “Is that a legal term?” Jake asked. Cam was sure his eyebrows were raised.

  “No! Just… I mean if you asked Mr. Patrick, he’d say it was okay!”

  Rob whispered something about the missing pot plants in her ear, but she stepped on his foot. Telling Jake they were investigating the murders would
not help their situation.

  Cam worried Jake had overheard Rob, but he seemed to be focused on Annie. Cam couldn’t stand it, so she broke the awkwardness.

  “Ah! Yes. Jake! Crowbar incident: the guy leads Annie on; they dated for months. How many months, Annie, ten?”

  Cam continued without waiting for an answer.

  “She thought he was going to propose. She finds out he’s actually already married. The jerk had been lying that whole time. Annie got a little carried away on the car. Not the guy who deserved it, but his car!”

  Jake frowned. Annie elbowed Cam.

  “How’d you hear that?”

  “My father, under duress, and only after you’d been carted off to jail. He thought you were planning on telling me or he wouldn’t have.”

  Annie sank on the spot, putting her face in her hands.

  “A married guy tricked you?” Jake asked.

  “Look,” Cam interrupted, “can’t we… forget all this for now?”

  “I need to make sure the Patricks don’t object.”

  “The Patricks don’t object.”

  Cam gasped. Evangeline stood behind Jake, lacy nightie flowing, Barney cuddled in her arms.

  “Cam is forward thinking, and we appreciate it. Sorry to inconvenience you, Officer. I just misunderstood the timing.”

  Cam let out a long, relieved breath.

  “They have permission to be here?” Jake asked.

  “Yes, but I forgot to cut off the alarm. I thought they would be calling when they were on their way, but we did discuss this.” Evangeline was a smooth liar.

  “Yeah, sorry I forgot to call, Evangeline,” Cam said. She was glad it was dark because she knew her whole face was bright red.

  “Did you get what you needed?” Evangeline asked.

  Cam and Rob nodded. Annie stood to join them, still looking very upset.

  “Y’all need a nightcap after being scared out of your wits?” Evangeline asked.

  Rob started to say no, but Cam stepped on his foot again. After she’d saved them, it seemed rude to say no.

  “That would be nice.”

  As they went to the house, Jake left, casting a lingering look at Annie, who wouldn’t look at anyone.

  Evangeline turned on a patio light and pressed a code into a panel, opening a minibar. She offered beer or bottled cocktails to everyone, and then sat in a chair with a mojito.